C O M PA N Y F O C U S
Making it happen
Founded in 1968, Handyware Group (Handyware) has grown from strength to strength with numerous state of the art manufacturing facilities throughout Asia and now in South Africa. The South African operation was established in 2012 and is housed in a modern FSSC22000 certified facility in Centurion. It offers a mélange of flavours, seasonings and systems to the local food industry and increasingly, to manufacturers in the African continent. The company has now started exporting to Asia. Its local success is due to the knowledgeable vision and excellent guidance of its general manager, Peter Tan. By Maryke Foulds
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entrally located in Centurion, Handyware is on an expansion drive and will be adding another plant in South Africa in the last quarter of 2017. Key manufacturing activities including flavours and fragrances, integrated seasoning products such as flavour topnotes, extract powders, reaction flavours snack seasonings and final seasoning mixes. ‘We are one of Asia’s largest seasoning producers and we recently commissioned a large state of the art facility in Wuhan, China,’ Tan notes. ‘We have a wide flavour range, including encapsulated, reaction and enzymatic flavours in addition to the normal compound flavours. We have a few tricks up our sleeve to support our customers. Our advantage is that we have a local production facility in South Africa to meet the demands and needs of our customers expediently. We also offer a range of snack machinery equipment. Our concept is to have a one-stop solution for our customers. We supply the machinery, and formulation up to final seasonings. A range of cost effective Rottweil inkjet printers rounds off our offering.’
When asked what sets the company apart from its competitors, Tan points out the following. ‘We engage with our customers to find out what piece of the puzzle is missing. We compare against the market’s offerings to find out how we can assist our customers to differentiate their products from the competition and benchmark against market leaders. We have various tools, i.e. flavours, seasoning and ingredients, produced locally and overseas at our disposal to assist in this endeavour. In a nutshell, we are not ordinary suppliers, but a partner to our customers so they can move their business up a few notches.’ Handyware is FSSC and Halaal certified. Currently, the company is evaluating kosher suitability for some of its products. ‘In South Africa, our core business is in flavourings, snack seasonings and contract manufacturing. We are very flexible in our approach with the sole aim to take our customers to another level. If our customers prefer us to blend all ingredients in the recipe into a single ingredient, we can make it happen. We have a fully-fledged African innovation centre and laboratory staffed by a team of highly trained food technologists.’ Flavour blending capacity of up to two tonnes
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Food Review | July 2017
Another warehouse is on the cards at the end of 2017
Tan is justifiably proud of the expertise and team he has assembled. Another highlight for the year includes the finalisation of a microbiological laboratory-to be commissioned during the last quarter of 2017. It is an interesting and challenging period for the South African food and beverage industry. The ability to respond to new trends amidst a slowing economy, for instance, sugar and salt reduction legislation, indicates how
CONTRIBUTION TO THE FOOD INDUSTRY “Handyware develops cost-saving and product enhancement solutions to customers in the biscuit, bakery, snacks, confectionery, beverage, and other industries. This is facilitated by use of ingredients developed in our global and African innovation labs. We develop matching expertise for customers who would like to benchmark their products against market leaders. We have a no compromise approach to quality amd we never rework our products” - Peter Tan.